140 Book of Steamships 



splendid Oregon to the Cunard Company, 

 who were only too glad to get the fastest 

 ship of that period on very favourable 

 terms. Unfortunately she had not been 

 long under the Cunard flag before she was 

 run down by an American wooden 

 schooner and sunk off New York. She 

 actually kept afloat for some hours, there 

 was no loss of life and the mails were 

 saved. 



The Cunard had seen that they were 

 losing prestige, whilst the Guion, National 

 and White Star Lines were putting such 

 fast steamers in service, so our next entry 

 on the " family tree " is a Cunarder, the 

 Umbria, 1884. With the Umbria came 

 the Etruria ; these fine ships came from the 

 Fairfield Shipbuilding Company, who 

 were no other than the reconstituted firm 

 of John Elder & Co. These Cunarders 

 were built of steel, and had a length of 

 500 ft., a beam of 57^ ft., and a tonnage 

 of close upon 8,000. Their compound 

 engines which were copies of those used 



